ARIES: Intergalactic Customer Service
by Akktri
Summary: The confidential journals of Grace Augustine, Director of Alien/Human Resources
1. Chapter 1: St Teresas

_Grace Augustine, H.R. Director_

_ARIES Customer Service and Collections Intergalactic, LLC_

_Private Journal_

_March 18, 2015_

* * *

Contrary to popular belief, I'm not dead.

There have been some fanciful stories going around to that effect. A lot of misinformation.

Sadly, due to the various non-disclosure policies within ARIES, I am not permitted to correct these errors, except in the form of this journal, which probably not see the light of day until decades after the date of my actual death.

Believe it or not, I was not killed by a heavily armed mining operation, and therefore was also not subsumed into a giant tree.

I am alive and well, gainfully employed by a struggling branch of a massive interplanetary customer service conglomerate that just so happens to have the ability to send office buildings through time and space.

I do not expect you to believe me. It's a hard pill to swallow. I barely believe it myself, but it's true.

Of course you don't want to hear about that. You want to hear about the Na'vi and Pandora and Jake Sully and all those myths and legends obscuring rather unglamorous fact.

Well this is _my story_, and I'm going to tell it the way it needs to be told. If Corporate ever makes this journal accessible to the public, I want them to hear my side of the story, not Pocahontas with blue noble savages.

First and foremost, Pandora is not a moon. It is a _planet_.

I repeat, not a satellite.

And there were _missions_ set up on it.

Churches paid good money to send groups of missionaries into space to convert the natives, most notably the Holy City.

The Pope actually had a space program.

I was a mission baby, born in St. Teresa's Evangelical Center, a hive-like arrangement of prefabricated concrete huts in the region of Blessed Virgin. The mission targeted Tamtiwa, adults and children, teaching them the bible, English, and civilization.

What are Tamtiwa? You should already know, but you don't because of all the misinformation. This brings me to my second point:

Blue cat people _do_ exist on Pandora, but they aren't called Na'vi. Their proper name is _Tamtiwa_. Na'vi are large stupid pig creatures, also bipedal, but excessively brutal, their greatest contribution to society being a sexually transmitted disease.

Our mission was built on a beautiful location, one side overlooking the jungle with all its multicolored exotic foliage, the other end looking out over a hillside, equally overgrown, leading to a picturesque series of cliffs with a waterfall. Day and night I dreamed of going there, walking underneath the falls, skinny dipping, but nobody ever let me.

Apparently, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, for as soon as I began to speak and walk, I was thrown in among them oxygen equipment and all.

I hated those air masks. The liner always itched and they never fit my face, and I had to wear them every time I went outside.

Still, it was either that, or stay cooped up inside a concrete igloo day and night and slowly go mad. It wasn't like I could breathe cyanide.

I would sit on the ground with all the Tamtiwa boys and girls in their bright yellow robes, wearing my mask, enduring their stares as I half listened to Steve or Mary Scott or one of the other elders reading bible stories, watching with envy as the Tamtiwa freely breathed the cyanide rich air.

Somehow they could breathe both oxygen and cyanide, so they could go anywhere we humans went, but I couldn't do the same. It was horribly unfair.

Human kids stayed with the human kids, Tamtiwa with the Tamtiwa. It wasn't just prejudice, it was survival. If someone's oxygen was running low, or the equipment wasn't working right, one of us could run and tell an elder.

Even more disharmoniously, we further subdivided by our home huts.

My little clique consisted of me, Gabe Martinez, Lacy Delgado, Mary Wright and Kamara Stevenson. Oh, and Buddy Bear, of course, but he was a robot.

Our every hour was structured, sunup to sundown.

In the morning, we processed to the largest prefabricated structure in the complex for morning worship. Afterwards, and never before, we bathed, ate and went off to our assigned educational modules, rotating from concrete hut to concrete hut, depending on the time of year, our age, and stages of course completion.

The course load of any given day was always something like: Bible, Math/Science/Agricultural Studies, Bible, English/Literature, Bible, Indoor P.E., History/Sociology (which includes the bible), Bible, and Pandoran health classes, which reviewed oxygen equipment maintenance and nature survival, various arts and crafts modules, Bible.

Our foreign language classes were rather awkward. Obviously, we had no use for Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese, whatever. We had Latin classes for the bible, but otherwise we studied only two languages: English and Tamtiwa.

Tamtiwa was a joint alien and human effort, the human mostly to keep the Tamtiwa in line, you know, make sure they weren't filling the children's heads with the wrong ideas.

My first Tamtiwa teacher was named Sacaza Nayeri. Maybe that's where they got this `Neytri' name from, I don't know. She was with us for many years before someone decided to expel her for teaching the children about the nature goddess Etowah.

My second instructor, Volbacha, taught us dirty words in her language, but no one said anything because she slept with elder Travis.

We lost Mary Wright a week after my eleventh birthday.

She thought she had gills.

It was after Christmas, technically the Feast of Saint Stephen, though no one could tell in a jungle where it's warm and humid all the time.

We ate breakfast in the common room, a large drum shaped room with a domed ceiling. Metal cabinets along each wall, judging from the open ones, contained dishes, no porcelain visible. A small light up Christmas tree stood at one end of the room.

The room had doors in all four cardinal directions, and had a plain beige color to it. On one wall I saw a framed picture of Christ in Gethsemane, and I stared at it, it turned into DaVinci's _Last Supper_. Photo frame, I thought, but a huge one.

A screen on another wall showed what looked to be camera footage of a jungle, and another showed a choir singing, and I could hear strains of _Rock of Ages_ above the sizzling of food.

The air was thick with the smells of something like ham and diesel exhaust, pancakes, eggs and WD-40.

Mom was standing over a sort of futuristic electric skillet situated on top of an aluminum sideboard thing, cooking eggs alongside met with gray and purple spots that definitely did not look like ham, and gave off that ham-ish diesel odor. Amfubvi, it was called. A little local flavor. Pancakes crackled in a strange little plastic cabinet on little shelves.

In the center of this room stood the table where we broke bread every day. Our chairs were specially designed so we could sit with the grownups, but none were usually present in this particular hut.

We all wore gray jumpsuits, standard issue. We were light years away from the nearest clothing store, and none of us were brave enough to dress in the local attire. For this reason, we never fought about clothing.

Gabe was a dark skinned boy with black hair. Handsome, though a little plump. Across from him sat Lacy, a freckly brunette, narrow in the face and body, kind of a cornpone tomboy type. Always had her hair braided or tied back. Letting it down interfered with her rough gymnastics.

Kamara, an adorable little black girl with an afro exploding from her head, always seemed to be talking, except when she stopped to eat, or people were forcing her to be quiet.

And then there was Mary. Poor sweet Mary. She was Lacy's polar opposite. Always prim and proper, doing what she was told. Regular little evangelist. Spent hours styling her hair to make it look just perfect.

Buddy Bear, our furry mechanical friend, sat on the floor by the wall outlet, getting his batteries recharged.

"So what do you think of this new kid?" Lacy was asking.

"Henry, you mean?" Kamara said. "He seems all right."

Henry Bechark was the son of Mussie Bechark, one of the Tamtiwa tribal elders. Mussie typically avoided our compound, visiting only to see the childrens' program or to partake in the holiday festivities. He even came by on Easter, for the amusing spectacle of seeing Tamtiwa children picking up all the eggs while the human kids fumbled blindly around.

If Henry was going to the mission, all that would change. None of us knew what Mussie's increased involvement would mean.

"He seems nice," I found myself saying as I dug into my food.

The so-called `bacon' tasted like turkey livers, mincemeat pie and sauerkraut, but I was used to it.

"Henry _is_ cute," said Lacy.

"He looks like a stringy alley cat," Gabe muttered. "And what's with his left ear? It's always laying crooked."

"That's what's cute about him," I blurted. "He's different."

There was an awkward silence.

Mom brought a skillet over to my friend with the `fro. "More eggs, Kamara?"

"Yes, please."

Lacy giggled. "Did you see how high Eugene jumped when I snuck that Omnodwa into his helmet?"

Eugene Fleming was a little guy we often picked on. It was surprisingly easy to send him crying and running to his home hut.

I saw what Lacy did the day before. The six legged rainbow colored frog crawled up across the kid's faceplate, and his mouth got really big as he went "Waaah" and flailed his arms around. When it got into his mouth, he jumped in surprise. In such a cloistered environment, that kind of thing was our entertainment, our Funniest Home Videos.

"You're too cruel to that boy," Mom said as she dropped some eggs on Kamara's plate.

"It's harmless," said Lacy. "We're just having fun."

"At Eugene's expense."

"I want to marry Starlea," Mary said.

Starlea Kiedra was a handsome athletic looking Tamtiwa boy, the most popular of his kind at St. Teresa's. This was not a normal choice for human girls. Most of us preferred Curtis Haron, the top rooster in the human kid flock.

Upon hearing Mary's announcement, mom laughed. "What would the children look like?"

"Marbles, I suppose," Mary said very seriously. "But they'd be beautiful, just the same. And they'd have noses instead of cat muzzles."

Mom chuckled. "I see you've been giving this some serious thought!"

"I have to!" Mary said. "You don't marry someone without first thinking it through!"

Mom covered her grinning mouth. "So you think it will actually work."

"It worked for Travis and Volbacha, didn't it?"

The mirth vanished from mother's face. "That's just a rumor. Just because two people are good friends doesn't mean they're sleeping together."

"I saw Travis chewing on Volbacha's ear," Kamara said. "That's _not_ just a rumor."

"Maybe he was hungry!" Gabe joked.

Mom waved her hand dismissively. "Adults play around like that all the time. It doesn't mean anything is going on." But I could see a note of disdain on her features.

Glancing at the clock on a monitor, she muttered, "Well, you guys had better get going to your morning lesson, or you're going to be late."

I didn't really care, but I knew it was pointless to argue. We put our dishes up, marching over to the hut's inner airlock.

"C'mon, Buddy," I said to the robot, but it shook its head.

"I am not fully charged. Please go ahead of me. I will rejoin you at Ms. Penny's learning station."

That's what we called our classroom huts. `_Learning stations_.'

"Right, bear," I muttered in annoyance, and we went on into the equipment room, donning our oxygen masks.

Our morning lesson was about David and Goliath. Children of both species sat on the cracked ground, listening to the muscular black man in a breathing apparatus flipping through an electronic picture book as he retold the old story. His delivery was passable, but when you're getting bible lessons every other hour, it takes more than that to sustain your interest.

"Jack Sully says he has a baby Ikran," Kamara whispered to my little circle of friends. "I've only seen them flying in the air. Sounds really neat. Want to go see it later?"

For the record, there is no Jake Sully. The only Sully I know is named Jack, and he's really not someone you'd want to spend time with.

Upon hearing the man's name, Lacy visibly shuddered. "No."

"What's wrong?" Kamara said. "Scared?"

Lacy looked pale. "No."

"Well, then. What is it?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"I knew it," Kamara grinned. "You _are_ scared."

Lacy sighed, looking frustrated.

My friend with the afro squeezed her hand. "It's okay, Lacy. It's just an animal. We'll be there with you!"

Lacy swallowed hard. "That's not what I'm scared of."

Kamara laughed. "What then? What are you scared of?"

Lacy looked around the the crowd nervously. "I can't tell you."

"Why can't you?" Kamara said. "What's the big deal? I'm your friend!"

Lacy was unconvinced. "I just don't want to talk about it, okay!"

She said that last part so loud that everyone was staring at her.

I put a hand on Kamara's shoulder. "Leave it alone."

And then, as the children continued to stare, I turned to Mr. Odum and loudly said, "If we're supposed to forgive our enemies and love them, then why did God tell David to saw off Goliath's head?"

My feigned misunderstanding of key bible points earned me a ten minute lecture, effectively taking the heat away from my friend. Lacy smiled at me gratefully.

All of a sudden, Gabe clutches his throat, his helmet filling with foam as he collapses backwards in the dirt.

His face and arms were turning purple, his hands swelling like a rubber glove with too much water in it. His whole body shook with convulsions.

"Gabe!" I cried, but I didn't know what to do.


	2. Chapter 2: Unicorns, Rainbows and Sex

_March 25, 2015_

_14:00_

* * *

My office is a small mahogany paneled room. The desk is almost the same width as the back wall, leaving me only a couple feet to maneuver around to get my files, or spice coffee or whatever.

To compensate, I have a deluxe leather desk chair, which I sometimes sleep in.

Two rather beat up looking office chairs with hard uncomfortable backs sit across from me. Hot seats for employees that screw up their calls.

I have a computer, but it's alien technology. You wouldn't recognize it. They've customized mine to have the appearance of Microsoft Windows, but a lot of times it's just easier to use the backwards alien configuration.

It's a different world I live in now. After spending half my life in alien jungles, I sit behind a desk in my little office, reviewing live hologram chats between by employees and a myriad of strange looking extraterrestrial customers, eating pizza.

Granted, the pizza I eat has little crawling insects on it, _edible insects_, but it's a luxury I regularly enjoy. I fear I may be growing soft.

"Thank you for calling ARIES," a young black man is saying to someone while clad in his regulation gray dress.

Glancing beneath his skirt, I notice he has nice legs, but I can't let things like that sway my judgment.

After awhile, it doesn't. I give him a fair score, and move on to the next ones. The droning repetition of our call opening scripts get to me, and I again find my thoughts returning to my childhood at the missionary compound.

To Gabe's serious medical emergency, and The Big Unicorn.

The bible lesson was halted. We all turned to look at the Hispanic youth sprawled on the cracked dirt in front of Hut 9.

My friend and hut mate.

The boy I had ate with, and lived with, and shared the same oxygen with.

He was dying.

I stared speechlessly, uncertain of what I could do to help.

A crowd gathered around him as he gasped for air.

Mr. Odum had stopped his reading to try and help.

"Does anyone know what happened?" he was asking. "Anyone?"

"I don't know," plump little Jolene from Hut 12 was saying. "He just suddenly started clutching his throat, and he felled over."

The kids were murmuring to each other as he yelled for the medics, Cathy and Venn.

"What you think happened?" Kamara asked.

"I don't know," said Lacy.

A portly thirty year old woman with blonde hair wooden from alien styling concoctions came running, followed by a sloth-like man with a buzz cut and beady eyes.

Talk continued as they knelt by the boy's side, muttering things about airway obstructions, vital signs and various diagnoses.

They cut open the top of Gabe's jumpsuit, clearing any constricting articles, checking for bite marks, wounds and bruises. Then they set up a little plastic tent over his upper body, one with a built in oxygen pump and holes for them to stick their hands and instruments through.

"It appears to be an allergic reaction," Venn was saying as he rolled the patient over, shoving a breathing tube down his throat. I didn't understand this at the time, but when you get a severe allergy, your breathing channels swell up, so a mere oxygen tent isn't enough.

"They weren't eating anything," Odum protested. "He was only listening, or rather, _not listening_, to the lesson."

"What about insects?" Cathy said.

"There have been no reports of biting insects, stings, or insect related rashes in the last week," Venn said. "At least, not any serious enough to merit a visit to the infirmary. In fact, this particular allergic reaction appears to be internally induced."

"I didn't give them anything," Odum repeated.

Cathy stared at him. "Maybe one of the kids, then?"

Suddenly a mousy little Tamtiwa girl came forward, trembling with nervousness as she handed the doctors a pair of wrapped snacks made of meat and some kind of plant matter. They looked like egg rolls. "I gave him one of these. I thought humans could eat it."

Venn took one of them, and without a word, ate it.

A bunch of us stared at him in horror, but nothing happened.

After a dramatic pause, he announced, "The majority of these compounds are harmless. Kiwivdir and Wuksuwad, however, contain many compounds which are fatal to humans."

And what is he, exactly? I was thinking.

It seemed like one of those gimmicky stage tricks people did, like sword swallowing, so I just thought he was playing around.

Still, he was a doctor, and normally succeeded, so I trusted he could help my friend, regardless of whether or not that stuff was actually fatal.

Gabe's brown face now looked pale, almost white. He sweated profusely, clutching at his chest as foam gurgled out of his mouth.

"He's experiencing a cardiac event," Venn said.

He ordered Cathy to run and get some medical supplies or another, but by the time she came back with her handful of syringes and bottles and cylinders, Gabe had stopped breathing.

Venn touched his fingers to Gabe's neck. "No pulse."

Cathy checked the oxygen line in my friend's mouth. "He had air."

"Like I said. It was a cardiac event."

He rubbed his palms together. "Attempting cardiac stimulation."

He placed his hands on Gabe's chest, and the boy's body jerked upwards like he had used a defibrillator.

It was then that I began to suspect that our doctor was not quite human.

One could still argue a case for deception and trickery, but I could not determine a motive for such performances, and so it would continue to gnaw at me.

Odum ran and brought them a stretcher, to bring Gabe into the infirmary, but as they were picking him up and carrying him across the path, I could see it was too late.

"Time of death 11:00, forty seven seconds, twelve milliseconds, forty three..."

"That's enough," Cathy muttered.

The man never once looked at a watch. Yet another item to puzzle my twelve year old brain.

They laid the stretcher on the dirt, and the elders prayed over the body.

Mom came running, eyes full of tears as she fell to her knees before the body.

All activity at the mission stopped for the funeral. Father Travis got before the entire population of the compound, giving the eulogy, the same eulogy he gave for Ray Galutia after that fatal climbing accident two months ago, and probably the same one he used for Veronica Eisley, a year before that. A few small changes, and he had an instant sermon.

It was a nice sentiment. Our home isn't Pandora or earth, and Gabe had left us for that better world. Something from Corinthians, a quote from Revelation 21...the repetition kind of weakened the impact of the message. I fell asleep on Lacy's shoulder.

After the interment, we were given the rest of the day off. To reflect, to grieve, to pray.

At least, that was the theory. Lacy, Kamara and I saw it as an excuse to play hookie. Gabe would have wanted it that way. In fact, he probably would have come along, if he hadn't been dead.

"I just spoke to Henry," Kamara was telling me. "He wants to show us his home."

Mussie's home.

I had only seen it once. In passing.

As part of our mission activities, we periodically made group forays into Kabguhra, his village.

Caroling, prayer and preaching `sorties,' that kind of thing.

Never in small groups.

Never privately.

When she asked Mary, I think she got scared. She said she didn't feel like it, that she was still trying to cope with Gabe's death, but her face reflected fear. I think she was afraid of getting caught.

I, on the other hand, was almost peeing my pants with excitement.

I admit, I also was afraid, but it was the kind of nervous fear you get before a date.

"I'm game," I said, my heartbeat increasing with anticipation.

And so we girls followed the alien past a row of huts.

"What about Buddy?" Kamara asked suddenly.

I stopped. "You want to bring him along?"

She nodded, holding up a little plastic block. "I got some things I want to show you."

The huts in St. Teresas are arranged like the rings of planets around a sun, the `sun' being the domed church in the center.

Staff and educational huts lay along the inner orbit. Our communal homes were situated on the ring outside that one, and more on the outermost orbit.

They all looked pretty much identical. Leaders had built totem poles and put up faux dance shields in front of each one to give them character, each depicting bible stories, of course.

Ms. Penny's hut had two dance shields, one painted with the image of Noah's ark, the other painted with a unicorn, the bible's bronze age interpretation of the rhinoceros.

You don't knock on the hatches of huts like these, no more than you would knock on the front door of a school.

A pity.

Ms. Penny's hut consisted of rows of aluminum desks, some lightweight material kit assembled couches, and some sofas put together by Tamtiwa. Class projects were made from cavridmo pulp, the native version of papyrus or paper, were hung from the sloping walls.

The first thing I heard when I opened the second airlock was the sound of Ms. Penny having an orgasm.

You'd think hearing those airlocks opening and closing would have clued them in, but I guess when you're right in the middle of things...

That being said, it wasn't quite what I expected.

Ms. Penny wasn't actually touching anyone.

Well, unless you counted an occasional knee or an elbow.

She lay sprawled on a Tamtwiwa crafted couch, clad only in a bathrobe, which hung wide open, exposing everything on her plump, borderline overweight body.

Mr. Jones sat, equally unclothed, on the sofa right next to hers.

_Jones._

I had a crush on Mr. Jones.

I couldn't stop staring.

In between them, I saw a squirming creature. A big, slug-like thing, covered with eyes, legs like a millipede, a creature that exhaled multicolored smoke through gills and long tube-like tendrils, which they inhaled with giggles and sensual moans.

When I entered, they didn't appear to be upset. Instead, they just laughed and pointed at me.

Mr. Jones got up, chortling as he towered over me, completely unclothed.

I blushed. It was the first time I had ever seen a naked man.

"Class is canceled," he said. "Whatcha doing here?"

My face felt like it were burning up. "I...came to pick up Buddy," I stammered.

"The bear, you mean?"

He pointed at my fuzzy robot, which now lay on the floor sideways, like it were just an ordinary stuffed animal.

"Yeah," I mumbled, stumbling backwards in that direction.

I bumped into a desk as I continued to stare.

The man put a hand on my shoulder. I thought my jumpsuit was going to melt from the heat. "You in a rush to leave?"

"Uh, kinda," I said. "My friends..."

He chuckled. "I'm sure they'll wait up."

What was this? It was obvious he was with Ms. Penny, but did he want me too? Was I ready for something like this?

I paled. "No, I don't think they will." And I picked up my bear. "I'm sorry..."

And then I see Ms. Penny coming up to me in her open bathrobe, hands offering that squirming creature, with the eyes and the smoke and the tentacles.

"You should try this," she said. "It'll make you feel good."

I grimaced in disgust. "What _is_ that?"

"It's called Woakvabo, dear. It...puts you in a..._happy place_, full of unicorns and rainbows...and sex."

A Woakvabo. I was still trying to figure out what a penis was, and she throws another alien word at me.

I glanced sideways at Mr. Jones, afraid to be seen staring at him so much, then looked at the naked teacher, and the thing they'd been smoking.

Unicorns, rainbows, and sex.

I watched the creature writhing with wide eyed fascination, mouth agape. Its eyes were hypnotic, its body reminding me of the fat portion of a yellow boa constrictor.

"You don't have to go all out," Mr. Jones said. "Just do a puff. See how you like it."

Unicorns, rainbows, and sex.

Maybe it was because I was just a dumb kid. Or maybe it was because I had just entered puberty and had discovered that things on my body felt funny when I touched them, things mom never wanted to talk about.

I knew Ms. Penny.

I trusted her.

She was my friend.

If she did this stuff, and she was okay, I thought, it had to be safe.

But how could unicorns and sex possibly be connected? It made me shiver just thinking about it.

Trembling, I reached up, grabbed a tentacle, and put it in my mouth, taking a cautious inhalation.

I saw a rainbow, all right.

When I stopped coughing, I saw the rainbow.

My whole world became a rainbow.

I saw a multicolored rainbow of colors, and they were flowing through every part of my body.

Every part of me that could be touched, was touched.

I swore I heard hooves pounding down the concrete floor of the classroom.

I saw a great shaggy beast approaching, but its muscular body had no substance, ghost-like as it stampeded my way.

Big.

Massive buffalo sized body, bedecked with thousands of antlers.

It turned into smoke, then reappeared, impaling me.

When the horns entered me, it felt good.

Too good.

Like someone threw a switch between my legs.

I wet my pants.

When my mental fog had finally cleared, I noticed I was standing in the inner airlock, surrounded by staring faces.

"Grace? Are you all right?" Kamara asked, face pale and drawn with worry.

"Unicorn," I blurted. "B-big unicorn."


	3. Chapter 3: The Mills Place

There is a giant mound of sand outside the break room windows.

It is surreal to be retrieving a Mountain Dew from a vending machine with _that_ reflected in the glass, especially with all the sand trout swimming through it.

I smoke my E-Cig, watching the creatures wallowing in the silica.

This is ridiculous. I'm call monitoring on a fictional planet. Some boring book about drugs and giant sandworms that just so happens to be real.

We got sand in the oxygen systems, sand in the carpets, grit in our machinery, sand fucking up our computers. They track it in every time they come through the door in those God awful gray rubber water filtration suits.

And don't get me started on that `Spice' shit. You can't get away from that damn cinnamon smell.

They take the drug, their eyes start glowing blue, and they think they know it all.

You know, I think I used to like scifi, but that was _before_. Familiarity breeds contempt, and I've got ten years of familiarity under my belt.

An old man in a tropical shirt and khakis stares out the window with me.

Harold.

"Funny," he mutters as he stares at the baby worms. "They're supposed to breed in water. You think we've got a leak somewhere?"

I puffed my E-Cig, shaking my head. "You can't believe everything you read. I mean, what sense would that make? A planet with no water breeding millions of these things...out of what, exactly?"

"There's underground pockets of water," he said.

"Yeah? But wouldn't the constant breeding make all of it dry up?"

"Hmmm..." Harry frowned, falling silent.

The sky suddenly darkened, the hot twin suns of the desert world overshadowed by an inky sepia twilight.

"Got dark all of a sudden, didn't it?"

I didn't reply.

He peered through one of the other windows. "I'm going to go check the weather station." And he walked off.

I stayed, staring at the scene in puzzlement.

The planet had no clouds.

No precipitation.

It wasn't even close to nightfall.

At first, I thought it was an eclipse.

Then I saw the teeth.

The mouth was huge, its diameter about the length of a semi trailer.

The thing struck the side of the building like an industrial freighter plowing into a wharf.

It felt like an earthquake. All around me, chairs, tables, and the damned Coke machines thundered to the floor.

And then the plate glass windows cracked.

"Where's our force field!" I yelled into my walkie talkie. "I want status on the Holtzman Field Generators!"

"Uh...we're having some problem-" A deadpan voice replied through the tinny speaker.

Before I could hear the rest of it, the windows shattered, and I was buried under a tidal wave of cinnamon scented sand.

God, I hate melange.

The wave carried me, against my will, across the room, throwing me into a Pepsi machine that read `REFRESSHHH.' If I ever survived this, I thought, I would make it a point to vandalize the fucking thing. `Refressshhh' _that_, you son of a bitch.

As I faded from consciousness, I heard the deadpan voice saying, "Good buddy" to someone, maybe me.

I faded into my thoughts, retreating from the world.

Back to Ms. Penny's hut, and the unicorn that got into my pants.

Back in time.

As I recovered from the drug inside the airlock of that hut, I stared uncomfortably at my friends, my emotions a confused mixture of shame and guilty pleasure.

"Hi," I stammered, embarrassed.

Lacy smirked as she gestured to the front of my jumpsuit. "Couldn't make it to the bathroom?"

I nodded. "I...uh..."

"I thought they had a toilet in the back."

"It's broken," I lied.

"Did you at least get Buddy?"

I glanced back and saw him lying on the floor by the inner airlock. It seemed someone had just dropped him there. "Yeah."

I rubbed my nose against the bear's to activate it.

"Is everyone prepared for another beautiful day at Saint Teresa's?" the bear exclaimed.

"What did you do, reset his clock?" Lacy asked.

I just shrugged. "I don't know! He was like this when I found him!"

The bear acted like he were sniffing something. "I smell something delicious cooking over in Mrs. Johnson's dwelling! Let's go see what she's got on the menu!"

"That's what you say every morning!" Lacy complained.

Kamara groaned. "I think someone just gave Buddy a hard reset."

"Why would they do that?" Lacy asked.

"I don't know," I muttered.

Kamara picked up the bear, staring into its doll-like eyes. "What's the last thing you remember, Buddy?"

The bear frowned, then smiled. "After I had completed charging my core, I brushed myself off and marched outside. I stopped for a moment to listen to part of another one of Mr. Odum's exciting bible lessons, and..."

He frowned. "Error. Cyclic redundancy check."

"He's been wiped," Kamara said.

"Gee," Lacy said with a smirk. "I didn't think those things pooped!"

Kamara's face reflected no amusement. "Why would anyone want to erase his memory?"

"I think I know," I said quietly.

I received a chorus of "Why," but I just shook my head and said, "Later," gesturing nervously at the inner airlock door.

"I think the Tamtiwa have an interesting craft project underway near the oxygen cultivation center, the bear said. "Let's go take a look at what they're doing today!"

"We're not doing anything due to the funeral, Buddy," I said.

The bear looked sad. "I'm sorry for your loss. Do you need cheering up?"

He glanced at my jumpsuit. "Perhaps some fresh clothing?"

I nodded. "That would be-"

"Wait," Kamara said, digging a little metal tool out of her jumpsuit. "Buddy's not going anywhere just yet." She removed a security device from the robot's back.

"What are you doing?" I asked with some irritation. It was _my bear_, after all.

"If I tell you now, the recorder will pick it up."

My eyes widened. "You mean you can shut-"

She shushed me.

With the device removed, she unfastened the fur on the robot's back with ease, exposing a little white box full of microchips.

"I saw this on a video," she said, pulling out a red cartridge. She took a similar looking cartridge out of her pocket, sticking it in the vacant socket.

"There. Now you can cuss all you want without being reported."

"You disabled parental monitoring?" I said. "What happens if mom finds out?"

"She won't," she said. "The program allows you to toggle back and forth."

"Where'd you get that?"

She shrugged. "It was in Doctor Venn's place. I kind of stolt' it. There was dust all over. I don't think he even touches some of that shit. I did what the guy on the video said and just erased the card and put in the code packages."

"What if Venn finds out?"

"He won't," she said. "I'm going to put Buddy's chip in its place."

"But what about Buddy's memory? Won't someone notice?"

"This isn't going to affect any of that. He'll keep recording. _In fact_, we should still be able to plug in some recovery software and pull up data from before the reset."

She reattached the security device, setting Buddy on his butt.

As we refilled our oxygen supplies, we watched as the robot stood up and looked around.

"Waldo Mods Version 87.5. Publication Date 9.9.3005. Main command module free for public distribution. For full copyright details and instructions, warnings and trade information, say Waldo."

"Suppress Waldo function," Kamara said.

The bear nodded. "If you wish to reactivate this function, simply say, `Unsuppress Waldo.' Please enter command prompt."

"Activate pirate mode."

I stared at my black friend in surprise. "Pirate mode?"

She nodded. "It's cool. Watch."

Buddy raised his head, squeezing one eye shut like it were missing. "Yo ho ho! Hoist the Jolly Rogerrr!"

The bear stomped around on invisible peg leg.

"Wait, ye scurrrvy swabs! What kind of pirrates arrr ye! Ye didn't even say the secrret password!"

Kamara rolled her eyes. "Pieces of eight."

The bear growled and nodded with satisfaction. "That's rrright, me hardies! But that be a mite too easy to guess! I be needin' a beterrr one. Give me a new password, and this time make it good!"

"Friendship is forever," I said. It just popped in there. The show was one of the few secular recordings we were allowed to watch. Plus maybe I kind of naively thought that friendship _did_ last forever.

"Why that?" Kamara said.

"Because mom would never say it, or at least not say it the right way."

Kamara laughed. "Yeah. She calls it `Friendship Ponies.'"

The bear froze as his computer processed the information. "Yo ho!" he said after the delay. "Now what's your word..." The bear lowered its voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "When the word is mum?"

"He means," Kamara said. "A password for turning off pirate mode."

"Um...Power Puff."

"Mom could guess that," Kamara said.

"That's the point."

"Why don't you just use `time for bed' or something?"

I shook my head. "Maybe it won't be bedtime when I need him to shut up? Anyways, _I'll_ mostly be the one saying it."

I paused. "So he doesn't record in pirate mode?"

"Nope. He's got some other functions, but we've wasted too much time here already. We need to go now or we'll never reach Henry's village before dark."

We donned our equipment and stepped outside.

"What's this about a unicorn?" Kamara asked.

I shook my head violently. "Nothing. Uh...I'm just tired, I guess. You know, from the funeral and stuff."

She nodded. "Yeah, I'm still trying to cope myself."

But Henry knew something. He was giving me a suspicious look, not unlike the kind you'd give a recovering alcoholic when you see them coming out of the basement looking loose and super happy.

"I...need to go home and change," I said.

Lacy narrowed her eyes. "What. You chickening out?"

I frowned at her in annoyance. "No. It's just I don't want to go into Henry's village with pee pants, okay?"

"You can go in the Mill's hut," she said. "I think they still got some of Cassie's old clothes in there."

Cassie Mills was a very..._unsanitary_ person. We used to make jokes about her wiping boogers on everything. They sent her to earth a few months ago. Apparently she got stung by something, though we all thought she probably put the bug in her mouth first. She was always doing disgusting stuff like that.

Ironically enough, she was also the reason why medics fed us bomastenu leaf to regulate our bowels. She tried it first. Spent the whole day on the can.

"Fine," I sighed.

The Mills hut was at the edge of the compound. Nobody used the thing due to its improper sealing. Oxygen leaked out and cyanide got in. The hut containing hydroponics and the main air processor for the mission lay at the opposite end of camp, so there was no incentive to fix the place. The adults had locked the building up and dismantled the air pumps, but we had our ways around these things.

Cassie's jumpsuits were all covered in dust, perhaps even old boogers, and uncomfortably baggy. She always _did_ have a weight issue. As much as I hated it, they would have to do. I didn't take her panties, though. I had to draw the line _somewhere_.

The shower was another problem. The compound runs on an underground pipe system that works by filling up reservoirs for individual huts. Kamara had to open a panel on the floor to open the valve, and the rusty pipes spouted stale orange water. And of course I had to shower with my oxygen mask on.

Just like anywhere else on the mission, the bathroom, unsurprisingly, was a cube. Not a window anywhere. Standard facilities include a sink and toilet that looks like something out of an interstate highway rest stop.

The shower itself was like a closet, lined with a waterproof plastic shell and a streamlined shower nozzle. Instead of a knob, it had a touch panel on the wall where you could select a temperature setting.

As I was taking the last piece of my clothing off, I found Buddy waddling into the room. He wasn't acting like a pirate, which made me a little uneasy.

That was, at least, until I heard him fart.

"Excuse me," the bear said. "I didn't mean to let that one slip."

Shaking my head and chuckling, I stepped into the shower, turning on the warm water.

"Shall I wait (fart) out here until your bathing cycle is complete? (Belch). _Excuse me_."

"I think you'd better, Buddy," I said. "You seem to have gas."

"Would you like me to try an antacid? (Fart, fart)."

"Yeah, maybe that would help!"

"Do my farts have satisfactory loudness?"

Giggling, I said, "I think you should save the really big ones for when we're sitting in class together."

The robot nodded. "From this point forward, I will save all my loudest, juiciest farts for times when you are in class."

It paused. "Do you wish me to accompany you in the shower?"

It seemed the only thing that made this module different from the original Buddy program was the flatulence. He tended to be a bit creepy.

"That's okay, Buddy," I said. "Just stay out there and fart your brains out."

"Very well then," he said. "I will happily observe you from the exterior, _and fart my brains out_. If I observe any dangerous situations, I will report them to the appropriate authorities."

I put my hand on my hip. "Buddy, for the record, what we're doing is slightly dangerous, being that there's no oxygen in here, but I don't want you reporting any of that to the adults, okay?"

Buddy responded by letting one rip.

As I turned on the sprayer with the mask over my face, the bear said, "I highly recommend closing the door to maintain environmental cleanliness, and to avoid accidental falls."

"We're not going to hang around here, and nobody else will set foot in this place, so I don't care."

The bathroom door was closed and locked anyway.

"I noticed you did not bring a towel," Buddy said. "Would you like for me to retrieve-"

I didn't let Buddy finish. In one quick movement, I grabbed him by the head, flinging him under the spray.

"Sorry, Buddy. You haven't been washed in awhile."

"It is okay, Grace," he said, letting out another fart.

I closed the door and held the bear under the shower head, playing with the temperature and water pressure, spraying him with blasts of foamy shampoo, which came out of the same pipe at the press of a button.

"Did you know," Buddy gurgled. "The electronics and circuitry of all Buddy units are rated one hundred percent waterproof by Consumer Electronics Testing Association?"

"Yeah," I said. "You've only told me that a million times."

It rubbed its stomach. "My tummy doubles as a floatation device., providing a valuable lifesaving service."

I hurried up and scrubbed myself.

"I am programmed to imitate the bathing patterns of domestic pets. Would you like me to demonstrate?"

"No thank you. Maybe you can do that outside if you see a grownup or something."

Done with his coat, I threw him out on the bathroom floor, shutting the shower door as he shook himself off like a dog.

I just turned off the water and cowered behind the plastic simulated frosted glass, watching Buddy as he dried himself off with a cordless hair drier powerful enough to fire tennis balls.

Getting the power back on was easier than making the water pumps work.

"Can you get me a towel?" I said.

The bear bowed. "Gladly." And he tooted again.

He left the room, coming back a few minutes later with a pair of large body towels, handing me one through the crack in the shower door.

The mission had great towels, made of a thick sort of material made of sponge-like fibers that left you bone dry. Once I was done, I hurriedly dusted off Cassie's jumpsuit and got dressed, rushing out to my friends.

Henry sighed impatiently as we adjusted our oxygen equipment, refilling our air from partials left by the Mills.

"I wish you all had Bazroks," he said. "It would save a lot of time."

"What are those?" Kamara asked.

"They're...creatures. They go into your lungs and help you breathe in toxic oxygen rich environments."

"What good is that to me?" Lacy asked.

"I don't know. I mean, if it lets us breathe your air, maybe it'll also let you breathe ours?"

"That's a big if," Kamara frowned.

"You think it will work both ways?" I said, thinking about how badly I wished to explore the planet without uncomfortable equipment. "Would it would be safe to use in a human lung?"

"I...I don't know," he said. "I was just saying it would be nice."

"It'll probably kill you," Kamara said. "I mean, look at what happened to Gabe."

I sighed. "I guess you're right."

"Anyways," Henry said. "Let's go."

The bear let out a squishy sounding fart.

"Gross, Buddy," Kamara laughed. "I think you'd better check your hindquarters."

The Tamtiwa rolled his eyes. "What is so amusing about.._that_?"

"It's a human thing," Lacy grinned. "We just think it's funny."

"Friendship is forever," Kamara said to the bear, changing it back to pirate mode.

It was getting late in the afternoon. We didn't have much time before it got dark.

We hurried outside, checking the area for adults. Eventually someone would notice we were not with one of the teachers. Except maybe Ms. Penny.

"Why ye standin' around, ye sluggards! Hoist the mainsail this instant, or I'll send ye all for a walk off the plank!"

We shushed the bear frantically.

"The _French_ are nearby," Kamara hissed. "And we're outnumbered!"

"Arrr," Buddy said in a low growl, raising his paws like he intended to fight someone.

Following Henry, we crept further and further toward the edge of the mission.

As we passed the last metal hut, Kamara suddenly blurted, "Hide! It's Mr. Odum!"

"Hold your ground, ye scurvy dog!" Henry hissed to the bear, and then the three of us abandoned him.

Buddy, to his credit, did not give chase.

I didn't know why we were hiding, but I joined them in running behind one of the metal domes, crouching in the squirming grass between the spokes.

"A pirating we will go," Buddy started singing. "A pirating we will go, hi ho a cherry ho, a pirating we'll go..."

And then I saw a black man with a bald head and a hawk-like face marching up to him.

"Hello," he said. "What are you doing out here, Mr. Buddy?"

"A captain goes where he wants!" the bear growled, brandishing an invisible cutlass. "And if ye were smart, I'd be gettin' along, before I send you to meet Davy Jones! Yo ho!"

The man chuckled. Putting his hands on his hips, he looked past the place where we hid, yelling, "Grace! Kamara! Henry! Come out! It's time for evening worship!"

"What do we do?" I hissed to Kamara. "They'll find us for sure!"

The girl pulled out a little makeup compact, showing me a miniature computer screen that only appeared to be a mirror. She activated a box on a menu.

"The children be over at Mrs. Johnsons, enjoying the genuine pirate cuisine, and that's the God's honest truth, or my name isn't Ahab."

Mr. Odum gave the bear a funny look, then turned and walked away.

"Yes!" Kamara hissed.

"I've _just_ _got_ to borrow that thing sometime!" Lacy laughed.

"Let's go!" said Henry. "While the getting's good!"

We soon reached the edge of the encampment, staring into a wall of jungle growth.

"Thar be the treasure!" Buddy growled.

"Can it!" Kamara hissed, glancing back to see if anyone else was looking for them. "The island savages approach!"

"Ay, first mate!" Buddy said in hushed tones. "I hear `em!"

The bear clammed up, his beady little eyes searching the trees.

"Are you making that up?" I whispered.

She nodded. "See any islands around here?"

I chuckled. "What now?"

"What do you think?"

"I'll take you to the village," Henry said.

"C'mon Captain," Kamara hissed. "The treasure map leads this a-way."

"Yo ho!"

We marched through the foliage, under glowing jungle vines that blinked at us with multiple eyes, past shrubs full of lollipop shaped fruit.

At least once every two months, somebody, some _boy_ or _man_, ends up getting sent to the infirmary after sucking on one of those for awhile. None of us knew it at the time, but that plant, whatever it was, caused priapism. It was like Viagra, growing in the wild. The nuns liked to tell us that it merely caused `urinary problems.' "They can't pee," they would tell us, which, although pretty effective for scaring people away, was a half truth.

"So," I said as I followed the Tamtiwa down the ridge of a fallen log. "No human has ever put one of those _things_ in their lungs?"

"Not that I'm aware of," he said. 'But you might want to ask Mo'at to be sure. She's very smart."

For the record, Mo'at isn't exactly what you think she is, either. But I'll get to that later.

The jungle was like a maze. We climbed over so many rocks and dipped through so many channels that I had no idea how to get back, but my cat faced friend seemed to know exactly where to go.

Well, until Buddy Bear tripped something, and a snare trap lifted us forty feet off the ground.

There had been dead leaves on the dirt, and rocks, to conceal the snare from its hapless victims. The moment it snapped closed around us, a rock hit Lacy's helmet, shattering the glass.

She screamed.

"Lacy!" I cried, frowning at the damage to her helmet.

Kamara rolled over and gave it a good look.

"It's no good. It's just going to leak out her tanks."

"And no tape or anything," I muttered.

Lacy was too busy gasping to add anything to the conversation.


	4. Chapter 4: Bazrok

We all took the same classes, so we knew what to do. we shut off her valves, took off her helmet, and tried to coerce her to do the scuba diver method, you know, sipping from the oxygen tube, holding your breath, like you were swimming instead of sitting outside.

We tried to calm her down, but she was panicking.

At last I gave up and said, "Lace, you're hyperventilating. Let's trade equipment.

Wide eyed, she gratefully agreed to the arrangement, donning my mask and breathing apparatus, while I resorted to taking calm, even puffs of oxygen like the tank were a sort of hookah.

"You're the bravest girl I know," Lacy said through her mask.

I took a drag of air, then breathed, I'm scared too, but it doesn't help anyone to panic."

I stared through the net, trying to discern what was going on down below. I saw bushes rustling, but nobody was making an appearance.

Well except maybe some floating jellyfish things, and a creature that looked like a combination of a wolf and a piece of landscaping sod. You know, _animals_.

Despite my difficulty breathing, I was experiencing strange feelings between my legs and other places.

Hanging there in that net, with Henry's body awkwardly pressed against me, made me warm and tingly in a way that reminded me of the unicorn.

The sensation of his warm breath, and the rubbing of his tail against me..._uncomfortably erotic_.

"Move over," I told him, but there really weren't that many places to go in this small net.

On my other side, Kamara had her elbow poking my ribs, and Buddy was weighing down my head.

Henry shuffled sideways a bit, but it wasn't much better.

"Sorry," he stammered. "That's the best I can do."

We silently stared out the net for a few minutes.

"You smell good," Henry said in my ear.

I blushed. "We are not having this conversation."

"What?" he cried. "Is it wrong to compliment you on your perfume?"

I swallowed. "I'm not wearing perfume."

I saw him turning purple. "Oh."

Instead of shutting up, he added, "Still, you smell nice."

"You're being creepy," I said.

I didn't want to admit, even to myself, that I liked it.

Lacy giggled.

I glanced at Kamara. "Can you reprogram Buddy Bear to get us out of here?"

She shook her head.

"Isn't there something in his body we could use to cut these ropes?"

She laughed. "Even if he did, would you really want to use them?" I mean, look at the ground!"

I sighed. "Fuck."

"Didn't your mama make you eat soap for that kind of language?" Kamara asked.

I squirmed as Henry's tail brushed my crotch.

"She _did_ mention a soap eating ritual a few times," he said.

"She's not the boss of me." I shoved the tail away. "Will you please not do that?"

Kamara chuckled like she knew something, but didn't say what it was.

"I thought it was important for children to obey their parents," Henry said. "There's even a commandment..."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, yeah..."

For a few minutes, we silently stared through the netting.

"Arrgh me hardies," Buddy Bear said. "Me thinks ye needs a cheerin' up. Hows abouts a jaunty seafaring song?"

"Sure," I groaned.

"From Boston harbor we set sail, when it was blowing a devil of a gale, with a ring-tail set all abaft the mizzen peak, and a rule brittania ploughing up the deep, with a big bow wow, tow row row, fol dee rol dee rye doh day..."

Before the next verse could be sung, Kamara hushed the bear by hissing, "Cannibals!"

When I glanced down, I saw why.

A crowd of blue figures had gathered below our net, arguing with one another as they pointed up at us.

"Here comes the welcome wagon," Lacy groaned.

After this had gone on for more than ten minutes, someone cut a rope and we found ourselves slowly descending to the ground.

"Uncle Nop!" I heard Henry exclaim in the Tamtiwa language as the net came open, and then he climbed out and hugged one of the creatures, jabbering excitedly about something.

`Uncle Nop' was tall and fat, with a braided beard. A female, about the same age, with spikes in her braids, clung to him so closely that I assumed her to be his wife.

"Prepare your cutlasses, lads," the bear said. "We've been overrun by savages!"

I and Kamara, of course, only ignored him, watching Henry interact with his kind.

Whatever Henry said to this group proved to be controversial.

"The procedure has never been done on a human before," I could have sworn one of them said.

"They're not going to make it," Henry persisted. "She's open to it. I think it's the only way."

I had learned some of the Tamtiwa tongue in classes. I guess it paid off.

"Legally, the mother has to give her consent, or they will charge our tribe with a criminal act. Their laws say a child has no right to make legal decisions."

Alarmed, I climbed out and hurried over to this little powwow.

They frowned as they watched me puffing from my oxygen tank.

"She is going to die," one of the blue guys said. "Look at her. The equipment is completely inadequate."

"She is a calm one," said Nop. "I do not think she will die quickly."

Henry nodded.

"Still, she may do better with a Bazrok."

"No," Nop said. "That is too dangerous. The Bazrok has not been tested on a human before."

"Are you talking about the Bazrok?" I asked in their language.

Henry's uncle and the others stared at me in astonishment. "You speak Tamtiwa!"

"Yes," Henry breathed. "She is amazing."

"So," I repeated. "_Are_ you talking about the Bazrok?"

"Yeah," he said glumly. "We're uncertain if you'll survive without it, but we're not sure you won't die _with it_, either."

"I want to try it," I said.

"It's too risky!" he protested.

I wouldn't take no for an answer. "_I don't care_. If I die, so be it. If this Bazrok thing does what you say, I'll be able to breathe the air freely, without getting sick and dying. To walk around outside without a helmet! To feel the air blowing on my face...! I want this, Henry."

Henry communicated the message to the others.

There were concerned mutters among them, then at last Henry said, "Okay. They say if you die, it's your own fault."

"I'll sign a waiver if I have to," I replied. Already I was a bureaucrat.

I explained the situation to my two human friends.

"You can't!" Lacy cried.

"I don't think that's such a good idea," said Kamara.

I just shook my head. "I'm going to die anyway."

"No you're not," Lacy said. "Take my air."

"No, Lacy. You need it. If you ever want to get home, you'll have to use it. If there's a chance that this Bazrok thing works at all, I want it."

They just frowned at me.

The blue figures led me through a cover of dense foliage, to a wooden cage situated within a cluster of trees the size of redwoods.

We stepped inside, and one of my blue companions cranked a primitive pulley, raising us into the canopy.

"Look!" Henry said as he gestured to the row of massive redwood-like trunks surrounding us. "The Tree of Souls."

It was not a singular, but a singular plural, like `cattle.' It seems the movie director had neglected to include _a lot_ of details in his story.

Henry's hometown reminded me of the Ewok village. Crude primitive huts connected by wooden platforms and rope bridges. We marched past several of these huts, enduring the stares of those who stood in the doorways, or sat sewing garments, or cooking.

We crossed bridges, traveling for several yards, to the point where Kamara had to sit down and rest, awkwardly in front of a surly weapon maker.

"Have no fear," the bear said as I dismissed him to her care. "If the savages come near, I'll be teaching _them_ a thing or two with my cutlass, or my name ain't Captain Blackbearded Bear!"

Near the end of this twisting, turning complex, I discovered a hut bedecked with animal bones and leather packets on strings (charms of some kind), its walls painted with arcane symbols, apparently with clay and various naturally occurring substances, maybe blood, judging by the flies.

My guides opened the door, revealing a smoky room containing the most basic of cots, clay vessels full of weeds and various disgusting substances, and a boiling cauldron.

Henry and his uncle led me inside, and the door was shut.

A wrinkly Na'vi with one eye stepped out from behind a curtain, smiling at me. Her fingers were bony, her body clad in a dark red robe and a shawl that looked like a cargo net.

"Mo'at!" Henry said. "I want you to meet Grace!"

"Nice to meet you, honey" she smiled.

Her voice was shockingly _black sounding_. Like she was from _The_ _Projects_, not a village on an alien planet.

She frowned as I sipped from my O2 unit. "You should go home, doll. What you're doing isn't safe."

I shrugged. "I want a Bazrok."

"You don't understand what you're asking for," she said. "We've never put `em in a human before."

"Then I will die," I said, sipping my air each time I spoke. "Either way, I'll die. I'd rather die in an experiment than die like this."

"You're a brave girl," she said. "You remind me of someone I met on another world."

"You've been off this planet?" I asked.

She nodded. "Oh yes. Mo'at Osmifa has been around, baby."

Osmifa pulled back a curtain, revealing a second hut, one that resembled a primitive sort of doctor's office. Crude wooden examination table with rudimentary gynecological stirrups, little clay pots containing medical supplies of questionable effectiveness, and a set of scary looking tools, to play Frontier Surgeon with.

The creature lay dormant in a cage fashioned from a bamboo-like material. A bow of insects lay near its head, apparently its food supply.

"You might want to strip down for this," the female said as she opened the little gate in the front, drawing the creature out with a dried beetle millipede. "Your mama's going to ask questions if she sees a bunch of Bazrok slime on your clothes. You'd better take them off."

I glanced around to make sure I had privacy.

The windows were covered in thatched screens, and the curtain had been closed the moment we passed through it. I frowned uncomfortably at the withered blue figure. "This is so awkward."

"Think of me as a doctor. That's essentially what I am. Doctor patient confidentiality and all that."

What a strange Tamtiwa, I thought. So oddly human.

Anyways, I unzipped my jumpsuit and stripped to my underwear.

A second after I had done this, I heard the curtain rustling, and I could see Henry's head peeking in.

I gave him the iciest glare I could manage, making him disappear.

I climbed up on the examination table, my legs dangling over the end as I poised my fingers beneath the respirator, ready to take it off.

The curtain moved, and I saw Kamara stepping in, Henry trailing close behind.

"Don't do it, Grace," Kamara said. Even behind the helmet, I could see the worry.

"I don't have a choice," I said. "My O2 is down to twenty percent, and it took twenty to get here. If I get this creature in my body, you can take my air, and we can both go home. Otherwise, one of us will have to die."

I scowled at Henry. "This is a private moment. I'm in my underwear. Girls only."

He shook his head. "I'm here as a friend," he said. "I'm worried for you. This might be the last time we see each other."

I swallowed. "Fine, but I promise, if I survive this thing, this will be the only time you'll see me in my underwear."

Henry grinned. "That's fair."

Then I blushed. Did I just promise to be naked? I decided to pretend like this conversation never happened.

Mo'at instructed me to lay down, so I did. My friends gathered around the table, watching me with wide eyed fascination and fear.

"This is going to be weird," she muttered. "This Bazrok is heavy, and I have no equipment, so I have to let it move itself."

And then she's pouring dead bugs all over my body, from my chest to the stirrups near the floor. I grimaced in disgust.

"I don't get it," I said. "What's with the bugs?"

"I'm too old, and it is heavy. Be patient."

I waited.

The beast was slug-like, but it had legs, and I found it oozing across my bellybutton before I even knew what was happening. The slime numbed my skin on contact.

I shuddered.

She touched her hand to my shoulder. "I sure hope this works," she said. "You're _such a sweet girl_. Are you sure you really want to go through with this?"

"Get it over with," I said. "Before I lose the nerve."

The old Na'vi grabbed the thing's tail, coaxing it to turn around backwards, and then I watched, with fascination, as she dragged its hind legs closer and closer to my helmet, massaging the creature's sphincter and a swelling lobe until it started making lazy backwards rocking motions.

"Etowah has smiled on you this visit," Mo'at said. "This female has only recently been fertilized, and it just so happens that the larvae is undeveloped, inadequate for the body of an adult subject."

A tentacle groped at my face and hands as I puffed from the tank.

"You're going to put that aside, honey. I'm sorry."

With a sigh, took one last puff and set the tank beside me.

I held my breath as long as I could, but I felt something bite me, and I accidentally expelled oxygen.

I gasped like a novice swimmer someone had pushed off a deep end, but the air was not breathable.

"Grace!" Kamara cried.

"Grace! No!" Henry shouted. "Mo'at! Hurry!"

The Na'vi unplugged a cord from my helmet, blasted a puff of O2 into my airways, then dragged the creature over my face, the slime numbing my chin and lips like Novocaine.

What happened next was like slow suffocation. The Bazrok made an oozing seal around my mouth, squeezing a crawling slimy blob through my mouth, Mo'at giving me puffs in my nostrils as my friends clasped my hands, muttering confused prayers and promising they were there for me.

When my throat turned numb, I could feel the creature swelling, filling the entire opening, strangling me.

I panicked, thrashing on the examination table, inhaling frantically through my nostrils. I wanted to scream, but couldn't.

"You're killing her!" Kamara yelled, her voice obscured by the helmet.

I could no longer breathe. I saw stars, a sure sign of oxygen deprivation.

Everything went dark.


End file.
